Are you ready to have some fun ? Friends say "if it takes longer to cook then it does to eat its not worth it" (as they pull themselves up to my table 😎 ) these are the veggies for this meal...and yes, you will use them all...plus carrots and 6 cloves garlic smashed that i forgot to have in this but you'll see later
Chop all the veggies except the green onions into 1/4" pieces , separate them each by half as half are for the loaf and half for the sauce (yup, same shit in each even the garlic)
Here we have about 2 1/2lb lean ground beef (85% or better) and about 1lb Andouille sausage I made up the other day
In a large pan over medium heat take about 2 tbsp butter, melt it and add half the veggies
Sautee til the onions are sort of translucent
Remove the veggies to a plate to cool, wipe the pan out and add 3 tbsp butter and 3 tbsp flour, simmer stirring constantly til you get a nice deep nutty butterscotch brown to it
Normally id do my own tomatoes but easy-peasy is a 28oz can of Ro-tel diced and the juice with a 28oz can of tomato puree.
Next add the rest of the veggies, 1 tbsp pepper, 1 tsp garlic salt, 2 tsp cayenne and 2 tbsp Cajun seasoning (I like making my own)
Let the mix simmer to get all happy then add in an 8oz pack of mushrooms, simmer another half hour then add an 11.5oz can of V* to thin it a bit (its also better than just tomato)
After you stir in the shrooms, I added a couple had fulls of carrots, aside from adding a bit of sweetness to the pot they make an awesome side to the loaf.
Now is when we get our hands dirty...I picked up some extra thick sliced bread and soaked in about 3/4 of a cup into these three slices, let set to really absorb
Once absorbed, cube them in like 1/2" cubes
Scramble up two jumbo eggs
In a large mixing bowl add the eggs, bread cubes, meat, 1 tbsp pepper, 1 tsp salt, 2 tbsp Cajun seasoning and 1 tbsp Cayenne (spicy but not that hot) and mix it all together good.
For the smoker I take a wire rack, wrap aluminum foil on it and make slits for the fat to drain through
Now transfer the meat to the rack and form a loaf
Now here we have some Man-Cave Engineering at its best (I gotta invent something for this) We all know that unless you have it in a pan it will sag as it warms so...Tongs and spatula to the rescue...lol (actually worked good)
I smoked it to an IT of 125 and removed theutensilss as it was set enough
At the 125 mark is when i also coated it with a liberal amount of the sauce and back in the smoke it went but cranked the temp to 375 ball park...just under 400
I brought the IT to 150 as the sauce set in beautifully, removed from the smoker and rested about 20 minutes to let everything settle back in before slicing.
And this is what the green onions were for... "Dinner time"...this is sooo moist and tender...this is NOT Mom's meatloaf ...Enjoy